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Saturn V Fallen on Hard Times
n9fzx writes "The best remaining artifact of the Apollo Program, Huntsville's Saturn V, is 'pocked with pits and cracks, and patches of mold and mildew', having survived for forty years outdoors. Alabama's U.S. Space and Rocket Center is trying to raise a measly $5 million in order to preserve the beast, with $1.5 million in the kitty so far. Paypal, anyone?"
It should have been used! I assume this is a complete rocket and not a replica, and when the Saturn V's were in service probably could have been launched. It is too bad it was allowed to wither away. I assume that it was abandoned along with the other remaining Saturn V rockets when the moon program was suddenly terminated and the focus shifted to the low-orbit space shuttle.
We used to drive past that rocket whenever we would travel to visit family down in New Orleans.
It looks big in person... looked even bigger as a kid... truly an impressive sight.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Hell, I could build my own themepark on the moon! With hookers, and blackjack! Forget the blackjack.
EGG, the Electronic Gamers Guild
According to this post, only about $40 million would need to be raised to service the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the best and most productive scientific instruments ever made. The Saturn 5 out at Huntsville is just a big hunk of metal laying on the ground, completely nonfunctional, and sure, maybe it gets even more pockmarked as the years go by, but it's not like it's going to suddenly vanish or anything. And anyway, unless something has happened, there's another one on display at Kennedy Space Center (I saw that one in the early 80's). I'd say put the $5 million toward servicing the Hubble and actually accomplish some useful exploration, rather than just polishing up a relic of glory days gone by.
If Stephen Baxter could use the Saturn V for a one way trip to Titan, I see no reason why we can't use it for Mars instead! Baxter has even done the research :-)
And just for the record, yes the book does drag, but it also has a great story of a dilapidated American space program doing something heroic which I found a tale worth reading.
Oh wait, that doesn't make sense at all.
Too bad I don't have an extra $1.5M lying around somewhere. Maybe I could talk to Capital One about raising my credit limit? ;)
Anyway, it was truly a remarkable construction. Everything about the Saturn V was huge. From the buildings involved in construction to the enormous crawler built to haul the damn thing. We're talking an absolutely massive scale... In fact, according to the history channel's show Modern Marvels, the only human-produced sound louder than a Saturn V at lift-off is the detonation of an atomic bomb.
It is a historical irony that space exploration takes second place to mass destruction in decibel output, though. Perhaps that says something about human nature?
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
Only has a Thrust To Weight of 1.5 (compared to >2 TW on a Eurofighter)
Weighed 5 million pounds fueled
Main engines burned for less than 2.5 minutes
Was travelling 6,000mph at burnout
Was slightly more fuel efficient than a Crystler SUV
Beep beep.
Apollo 20 was indeed assembled and serves as a memorial to the workers at the Michoud Assembly Plant near New Orleans. The first and second stages on display in Houston were originally slated for Apollo 19. The booster used for Skylab was that of the Apollo 18.
The owls are not what they seem
The hungry are not dieing from lack of money. They are dieing from corruption, apathy and malice, to name a few. Think Zimbabwe.
Remember the Viking sailing ships?
Remember Columbus' sailing ships?
Remember the Conestoga wagons?
Remember the first steps off this planet?
and onto another world?
It tells who we are, like it, or not.
Yes, while we're at it, if the Statue of Liberty begins to fall apart, no worries, we'll just let it fall over.
Effiel Tower? Nah, France surrenders.
Big Ben? I already have a watch!
Taj Mahal? Whatever, we can just visit it virtually since they scanned it with 3D lasers or whatever...
</sarcasm>
What's with all the "who cares" posts? If you don't care, don't donate to fix the rocket. Go feed the hungry or whatever. Jeez, I've said this twice before in the last 24 hours, but geeks/engeneers really will find a way to disagree with anything just for the sake of argument. It's the god damned Saturn V! This ain't just America's history, this machine brought the first MAN to the moon. I say preserve it at all costs!
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
There is a complete Saturn V indoors in a facility at the Kennedy Space center. Its in great shape (at least from the outside) and totally protected from the weather. Its in a museum facility that anybody can see.
Well said. $2 a day given to the world's starving will not reach the starving, it would line the pockets of corrupt officials or get soaked up in the vast inefficiency the majority of charities operate with.
Space exploration (or historic preservation) and removing world poverty are not mutually exclusive. Ending world poverty requires removing corruption and improving logictics in 3rd world countries, pumping money at them will not solve these problems, it will sustain them.
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FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
This seems a lot of money to preserve what is mostly a large metal tube. What are they planning on doing that will cost that much? It's a museum piece so the components don't have to be kept in working order; it just has to look intact wherever they are visible.
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In a short-sighted, cold and logical sort of way, you are absolutely correct. However, we as a species like to think that we are both social and moral creatures and our actions today affect our lives tomorrow. Therefore, just letting the 3rd world starve is not just wrong in a moral sense, it's not smart considering what will happen a few years down the road when the remaining billions come for our throats.
Then again, we (the peoples of the "West") really need to have this discussion. We've needed it for over a hundred years, but no one has been willing to pick it up, for various reasons. USA for Africa is just a Band-Aid (in your face, Bob Geldof!), but we will need to help them somehow, and soon - if for no other reason than our own long-term survival on this planet. The present state of affairs is not sustainable.
Money for nothing, pix for free
Cut the damn thing into hand-sized pieces, seal in plastic bags, sell them for $25 a piece and use the proceeds to send Carly to Mars on a one-way mission to sign outsourcing contracts with the Martians.
Damn, my living room museum needs a brick from the Berlin Wall, a chunk of the Biggest Rocket Ever Built, and a single hard-copy SCO share to go along with my original mint-condition 20-diskette pack of IBM's OS/2 (which never flew, either).
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I used to work (until about 1.5 years ago) pretty much opposite the Johnson Space Center in Houston. They have a Saturn V outside there - I often took people who came to visit me to JSC, and we'd have a look around the rocket park.
It's an impressive thing up close. From our parking lot at work, it didn't look that impressive. But when you got up close to it, it was another story.
However, the Saturn V at JSC is also in pretty poor shape - it's corroded right through in places if you look closely. The white paintwork on the CM is badly cracked. Apparently, it also became a home for some owls (which is not a bad thing really).
The best artifact inside JSC is an Apollo capsule that went to the moon and back. You can actually (or could when I was last there) touch the heat shield - it's neat touching something that's been to the Moon and back. When you look at it closely, with its primitive electronics and its small size, you wonder how they ever did it.
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As was discussed recently, they have a lot to teach us.
I'm not convinced at all that we should be spending billions of dollars of government money on new launchers when we have a system sitting around that works very nicely, thank you very much.
Sure, a brand new system would be better, but between the brevity of our pass by-with Mars, the vitality of private space programs, and our humbled and abused government finances, perhaps the Saturn should be more then a five million dollar paperweight and conversation piece.
And even beyond that, nothing gives perspective on a subject liking getting to look up close and personal at the gear used to do it. Especially since leading-edge gear from the seventies and earlier (like, say, the Spirit of St. Louis) always looks so DIY to anybody who pays attention.
I found it very energizing when I was a kid to see the Kennedy Space Center Saturn and think "hmm.... that wouldn't be so hard to build at all".
Rustin
Data is the lever, rigor the fulcrum, brains the force that drives it all.
Ebay anyone?